<\/span>that the Biden administration has ruled out releasing the billions of dollars in foreign assets because of their learning of and then killing the al-Qaeda leader in Kabul, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Your response?<\/p>\nMEDEA<\/span> <\/span>BENJAMIN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Thirty-eight million Afghan people should not be punished because a 71-year-old figurehead of al-Qaeda was living in Kabul. This money belongs to the Afghan people. And the U.S., for 365 days, has been holding their money in a New York vault while Afghan people are boiling grass to eat, are selling their kidneys, are watching their children starve. This is unconscionable. That money has to be returned. The U.S., for 20 years, built up a central bank in Afghanistan with a monitoring mechanism. It\u2019s one of the only things that continues to exist after 20 years of U.S. occupation. And now it wants to hollow out that central bank, create a separate mechanism.<\/p>\nI think the Biden administration, instead of listening to the war hawks in his own party and the Republicans, should listen to the women\u2019s organizations in Afghanistan, the 9\/11 family members, the economists from around the world, including Joseph Stiglitz, the human rights organizations, who have all said that this humanitarian crisis can only be solved by reinvigorating the economy and returning the Afghans\u2019 money to their central bank.<\/p>\n
AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>We\u2019re here talking about \u2014 I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s seven \u2014 whether it\u2019s $7 billion or $9 billion, but half of that, because the other half, the Biden administration has determined, would go to the 9\/11 victims. If you could respond to that, Medea? And also this issue \u2014 I mean, you\u2019re a longtime women\u2019s rights activist, a feminist \u2014 of the enormous crackdown on women and girls in Afghanistan, how that money would not go to supporting the Taliban, who are doing this?<\/p>\nMEDEA<\/span> <\/span>BENJAMIN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>The lawsuits by a small number of 9\/11 family members really will enrich the lawyers more than anyone else. And I think we should listen to the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, who have spearheaded a letter that 76 family members have signed, calling \u2014 saying that not a penny of that money should go for the 9\/11 families, it should all go for the Afghan people.<\/p>\nAs a feminist, I am certainly opposed to the policies of the Taliban, which have been horrific in not letting girls go to secondary schools and forcing women to cover themselves when they\u2019re out in public and saying they can\u2019t travel around the country without a guardian. All of these things must be opposed. And we are in touch with Afghan women every day that are working to change those policies. But they are already victimized by the Taliban; they should not be victimized by the United States by stealing the funds that they need to get their economy going. There are about 50,000 women businesses that are still trying to function in Afghanistan. They need access to the bank to pay for the salaries of their staff. Pensioners, women, need access to the bank to get their pensions. So, as a feminist, and I think all feminists should say, let\u2019s help reinvigorate the Afghan economy so that people can get jobs and that they can feed their children.<\/p>\n
AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Shah Mehrabi, your final comments? And would you support a third party getting that money?<\/p>\nSHAH<\/span> <\/span>MEHRABI<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>I think a mechanism that is under negotiation that will enable the transfer of fund to be used for, from my point of view, for price stability and also for reducing the volatility in exchange rate, I think, is a positive move. Now, there has been, as I said, in one way or another, a pause, and the pause hopefully is temporary. And I think negotiation and dialogue that will enable the central bank of Afghanistan to have access to its reserve must continue, as it is not only in the best interest of the United States, but it\u2019s in the best interest of ordinary Afghans.<\/p>\nI want to also mention that there\u2019s no \u2014 that no increase in the humanitarian aid can compensate for the macroeconomic harm of higher prices for basic commodities. That is, you know, aiming for a banking collapse or balance of payment crisis. And I think severe consequences could ripple throughout Afghan society and harm the most vulnerable people. And I think we have the tools and mechanism to be able to reverse it. And I think the freezing of Afghan assets will not \u2014 very important: It will not weaken the interim Taliban administration, while the overwhelming impact of that will be on \u2014 it will fall on innocent Afghans, who have suffered decades of \u2014 decades of war and poverty.<\/p>\n
And I think, while we have the means to be able to reverse this, why not go ahead and reverse this worst economic and humanitarian crisis? And I think the best way is by having \u2014 releasing the Afghanistan reserve, that rightfully belong to Afghan people, who established an independent central bank, and allow the central bank to be able to manage, to maintain this reserve and to be able to safeguard the international value of afghani, which is the national currency, and restore and keep and maintain price stability and also be able to allow and foster liquidity and also bring confidence in Afghanistan money and exchange rate policies.<\/p>\n
AMY<\/span> <\/span>GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> <\/span>Shah Mehrabi, we want to thank you for being with us, chair of the audit committee of the Afghanistan central bank, longtime economist, economics professor at Montgomery College. And, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, Unfreeze Afghanistan, please stay with us. When we come back, I want to ask you about the Biden administration\u2019s sanctions on Cuba, making it difficult for Cuba to effectively respond to a recent tragic fire, also the military budget that has been proposed, and the sentencing of a Saudi feminist to decades in prison in Saudi Arabia. Stay with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Nations warns that a staggering 95 percent of Afghans do not have enough food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1462,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,1328,463,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}